


Naked ambition

by joannereads



Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 14:57:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13056318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joannereads/pseuds/joannereads
Summary: Mike needs money and he needs it now. So when his friend convinces him (well, it didn't take much, he is REALLY broke) to sign up as a nude model, it seems like such a good idea. At the first class, he meets one man who  might just change his life forever.





	Naked ambition

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sway/gifts).



Nerves are taking over Mike’s entire thought process. He needs the money, that’s what he keeps reminding himself, but that doesn’t make what he’s about to do any easier.  
“Mike, is it?” asks an attractive woman in what he estimates to be her late fifties.  
“Yes,” he nods, shaking her outstretched hand and then wincing – his hand was far too sweaty for that. “You must be Lily?”  
She smiles in answer and gestures to the corridor behind her. “This way, dear. Don’t worry, this group will go easy on you!”  
Nausea sits in the pit of Mike’s stomach. He has no choice. Grammy needs the medication and he can’t afford it without this. Admittedly, twenty dollars an hour isn’t much to write home about. But it’s the only hour he has spare each week, between the library, the bar and the early morning cleaning job he picked up. Honestly, Mike’s just relieved that his ridiculous memory means that he doesn’t have to do much studying between his day and night jobs.  
“How many people will there be?” he asks, his voice sounding too loud in the corridor.  
“Six total,” Lily replies. Mike notices how her eyes sparkle, as though there’s an overwhelming intelligence behind them just desperate to get out. “Old man Thomas might not be here tonight, though, as he’s been ill of late.”  
Mike swallows, his mind filling with images of Grammy in the nursing home, wasting away without him. Guilt eats at him every day he spends away from her and honestly he’s wondered if it wouldn’t be better to stay home with her instead. Yet he knows, deep down, that this is the only way.

When he’d seen the sign on campus asking for nude models for the over-sixties life drawing class, Cara had jabbed her elbow into his side and laughed hysterically.   
“I can totally see you doing that, man!” she had laughed. “All pale and shaky and fucking terrified.”  
He had laughed along with her but here he was, because the more he’d thought about it the more he realised it would fit in with his schedule. Plus, the over sixties part had been reassuring – it wasn’t likely he’d be the least unfit in the room. 

Lily leads them through a set of swing doors into an art studio. Easels are arranged in a circle around a dais, which is draped in an ocean blue fabric that looks as though it will be at least warm. Lily doesn’t stop in here but instead pushes through another door into an ante-room, which has a soft armchair, a couple of hooks on the wall, and a robe hanging from the back of the door.  
“This is you,” Lily says quietly. “If you change into the robe, I’ll knock for you when the class are all here. Saves you waiting nervously in the studio as they all arrive!”  
She turns on her heel and pulls the door closed behind her. The smell of charcoal is heavy in the air in here, and he sees boxes of the stuff stacked in the corner.

Well, best get on with it.

Carefully, he tugs off his jacket, jumper, shirt and undershirt (okay, so he overcompensated, but he was nervous). He shimmies his jeans down and flips off his battered Converse before piling everything up on the armchair. He is very aware of the fact he is standing in a room, in the middle of campus, in just his briefs – and the door isn’t locked. Wincing, he pulls on the robe and sits on top of his clothes to wait.

It’s not clear to Mike how much time passes. He’s been reading an essay for his politics course on his phone when a purposeful rap disturbs him. Tucking his phone into the pocket of his jeans he stands, shucks off his underwear, and pulls open the door.

Beyond Lily, quietly setting up their supplies, are five white-haired ladies, and one man. He swallows and steps forward.  
“Now, Mike, we’d like you to sort of lean across the bench here, with your chin resting on your hand.”  
“Like a merman,” pipes up a tiny woman to his left. He turns sharply and sees her brilliant smile. She gives him a wink and he can’t help but huff out a laugh. “So let’s lose the robe, shall we?” the woman continues, and Mike feels a hot flush cover his chest. Focusing entirely on the dais in the middle of the room, he slips the robe off and hands it to Lily, before trying to arrange himself. He manages to avoid looking at absolutely anyone, aware that everything is hanging out for the world to see.

Lily spends a few moments coaxing the perfect pose out of him, suggesting tiny movements until everyone seems happy with the arrangement. The room is pleasantly warm, and the noise of scratching pencils is relatively soothing. Mike allows his mind to drift, recalling passages of his favourite books, scenes from his favourite movies (focusing entirely on actions thrillers – no favourite porn is allowed to pop up because the naked-in-a-room situation could end badly), and remembers things he did with his mom and dad as a kid.

Around him, he hears Lily’s lilting voice as she coaches, directs, supports and generally teaches the class. Mike loves the melody in her voice. If she was thirty or so years younger – and male – he would probably be attracted to her. Her eyes are captivating, her voice is soothing, and her smile fills the room.  
Jesus – what is going on in his head today?

Time passes in strange chunks of stories and drifts of sound until Mike is startled by a warm, papery hand resting on his shoulder.  
“Mike?” He turns his head and smiles at Lily’s knowing gaze. “We’re all done. You can dress now. Are you okay to stand?”  
Mike nods but stands slowly. His side aches from where he was draped over the pile of cushions and his legs feel like jelly, but he moves carefully as Lily drapes the robe over him to give him back a little dignity.  
“Would you like to see what they’ve drawn?” Lily asks, gesturing around at the artists who are packing up.  
“Can I get dressed first?” he asks, and Lily laughs, nodding an agreement. He slips into the little room and dresses quickly. 

When he steps back out into the main studio, Lily is speaking to a couple of the ladies from class, but all of their canvasses are still propped on easels and so he wanders slowly around them. He can see himself in the pictures, but not so obviously. Mike stares for a while at a piece drawn from behind, where the curve of his ass and long spine have been perfectly captured – better than the real thing, maybe.  
“Mary does tend to do a lovely job with bottoms,” comes a deep voice from behind him. Flushing scarlet, Mike whirls and finds himself face to face with gorgeous eyes and a wicked smirk.  
“Maybe the magic is in my ass,” he retorts. The man’s eyes sparkle and Mike feels as though they’re familiar.  
“Harvey, stop teasing the model!” Lily calls, and Mike suddenly realises.  
“You’re Lily’s son,” he says, a statement rather than a question.  
“I am. Harvey Specter,” Harvey says, and Mike takes the proffered hand and shakes it firmly.  
“Mike Ross,” Mike replies.  
“Mike,” Lily continues, “We’re going for drinks. You’re welcome to join us.”  
Mike’s brain scrambles through everything that he needs to achieve before getting to bed (it’s already 9pm) and tries to figure out if he has time to drink.  
“How about it?” Harvey asks, his accompanying head tilt an adorable mix of teasing and seduction, and Mike swallows.  
“I’m sorry,” and he really, genuinely is, “But I can’t. I have to go see Grammy and get some reading in for class before work in the morning. Maybe next time?”  
Lily smiles and nods, and he preens a little at the disappointment evident on Harvey’s face.  
“Next time,” he says again, for Harvey’s benefit, before he darts out of the room and down the corridor.  
~*~  
“Michael!” Grammy declares when he appears in the rec room of the home. She is currently thrashing Arty at Scrabble, which explains her effusive greeting.  
“Hey, Grammy,” he says, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Arty, how’s it going?” he asks, pulling a chair over to watch the end of their game.  
“Usual, kid, usual. Your grandmother, here, is an absolute shark at this game.”  
“Don’t I know it!” Mike humours, because she’s never beaten him. He read the actual dictionary when he was six, and she stopped playing against him pretty much immediately after. She punches him lightly in the shoulder.  
Arty’s score is about half his grandmother’s, so Mike has no issues with helping him through the final rounds. He still lets Grammy win, which she knows, but at least Arty has a more positive showing. When the game is finally over, Arty bids his farewells and heads off to a small group currently working on a rude jigsaw at a nearby table.

“It’s lovely to see you, Michael, but I wasn’t expecting you tonight. Didn’t you say you were working?”  
Mike hasn’t told her. Not about the modelling. She knows about everything else he does but he’s not sure how she would take this one and so he’d kept quiet until he had all the answers.  
“Mike?” she asks, “You’re all red. What’s going on?”  
So he tells her. He tells her about the rooms and the smells and the people and the picture of his butt. When he’s finished, Grammy frowns for split second before bursting into a gale of laughter.  
“Nude . . . nude modelling?” she laughs, wiping the tears from her eyes. Her cheeks are rosy and she watches him with hawk-like attention as she continues to laugh.  
“Fine. So it’s a bit funny. But Lily was really nice to me and her son was—” Mike stops abruptly because he knows he was about to say super-hot or gorgeous or fuckable and he wants to say none of those things to Grammy. But she smiles knowingly.   
“I thought you said it was for over sixties,” she says with a smirk, and he shakes his head.  
“It is. I’m not sure why he was there, actually, but he was polite and complimented my butt, I think, so everything’s good.”  
“What does he do, this polite son?” Grammy probes. But Mike doesn’t know anything except that Harvey had his mother’s eyes and a wicked grin, so he shrugs. “But you like him?” she asks.  
“I’m attracted to the guy I met for all of a minute tonight, yes, but that’s it. He was easy on the eye, but I’ll probably never see him again so it doesn’t matter. I’ve got to go.” He stands abruptly and kisses Grammy on the head. “I have work at five.” Grammy smiles up at him.  
“Thank you,” she says quietly.  
“What for?” he asks.  
“Everything.”  
He simply smiles, shrugs self-deprecatingly, and heads out the door.

The week passes by: a blur of time spread across cleaning, bar tending, book lending and studying. Mike isn’t sure if he remembered to eat every day, but he rests easy knowing that Grammy will have done and that’s literally the most important thing for him. When he steps back into the art building on campus, it’s with far less nerves than the week before, and a considerably greater level of fatigue. Finals are next week, and he hasn’t stopped because he can’t let Grammy down (or his parents, even if they aren’t actually next to him to see it).

He’s a little later this week than before, and a couple of the artists are already prepping their spaces. Lily is washing her hands as he steps into the room, and she smiles and nods towards the room.  
“Not long to wait today, Mike,” she says and he nods an agreement before going to change. This time he doesn’t wait, stepping straight back into the space as soon as he has his robe on. Hiding away isn’t going to change what he’s doing, and he’s honestly not sure he wants it to anyway. Mary strikes up a conversation with him about books, and is both impressed and awed it seems by his knowledge of the classics.  
“I read Catcher in the Rye when I was seven and I think some of the nuances escaped me, but I re-read it while camping with my friend when I was eleven, and it seemed to make much more sense,” he says. He remembers that trip, just before his parents were killed, reading the novel aloud in the darkness to a fascinated Trevor and his dad, who couldn’t get over that he could remember every word.  
“When you were seven?” she asks, warily.  
“I like to read,” he shrugs. He can tell from the sceptical eyebrow that she’s about to challenge him on this, when Lily calls him over to arrange himself again.  
“Same as last week,” she says, gesturing to the pile of fabric and pillows. Mike casually discards the robe and arranges himself, using muscle memory to find the correct pose. Today he’s more tired, though, and his mind wanders less easily. He stumbles over essay points and tries to focus on reviewing some of the sources for another assignment, but he’s finding it difficult. Instead, despite his very best efforts, he finds his eyes closing and his mind drifting towards silence.

When Mike is awoken by Lily, he realises how desperately he needed the rest because he feels more awake than he has in over a week. Unfortunately, his body disagrees, and he finds coordinating himself a little tricky.  
“When did you last eat?” Lily asks shrewdly, and Mike can’t remember.  
“That’s it. We’re heading to O’Connell’s for drinks, and we’re treating you to dinner.  
“Agreed!” Mary pipes up in the background. Mike wants to disagree. He wants to go home and study. But they’re right. He is starving and there’s no way he will work productively like that.

So he shrugs his clothes and coat on and follows the group of septuagenarians to the bar.   
“Where’s that son of yours?” Mary asks of Lily.  
“At the office, of course,” she replies. Her mouth is twisted in what Mike terms proud-disapproval, because she obviously loves that he works hard, but hates it in equal measures.  
“Double burger with fries?” asks the waitress, and the entire group points at Mike, who laughs and takes the plate.  
“She was pretty, wasn’t she?” Frieda asks. Mike, who already has a mouthful of burger, just shrugs.  
“Not your type, kid?” asks Steve, the only male artist in the group.  
“Not my type,” Mike replies.  
“What? Was she too pretty? Too blonde?”  
“No!” Mike laughs, “too female!”  
Steve flushes, embarrassed, but Mary hands Lily ten dollars begrudgingly.  
“I told you,” Lily giggles, “I’m never wrong.” And Mike, surrounded by laughing old people, feels oddly as though he’s been tested.

Mike eats quietly and listens to the conversations around him. He wishes Grammy was here with them. She would love the talk about what real movies were like, and how modern music in tuneless nonsense, and all the other things that the artists discuss over beer and gin. It’s oddly soothing, sitting with them, and he stays far later than he intended. By the time eleven rolls around, he’s beginning to regret it. He has work in six hours. Yet, he doesn’t seem to be able to leave.  
“Mike, what other books do you know by heart?” Mary asks out of the blue, though judging by the expressions of other people around the table, they have been discussing this while he daydreamed.  
“It doesn’t quite work like that,” Mike explains. “My memory is weird. If I read something once I remember it. And once I remember it, I understand it. It just stays there. It’s not really memorising when I don’t even have to try.”  
There is an intrigued murmur around the table and Mike knows where this is going. Usually he hates putting on a show, but these people are his people now, so he relents.  
“Pick up the menu,” he instructs, and Lily follows.  
He then begins to recite from top to bottom, including sides and dietary requirements. When he finishes the first page, Lily laughs and claps her hands before patting him on the cheek.  
“That’s an amazing mind you have there,” she says softly.  
“You do indeed,” comes a new voice from behind. Harvey. He wears the most perfect looking suit Mike thinks he’s ever seen, but he also looks tired.  
“Harvey! Darling! I thought you weren’t going to make it!” Lily exclaims, gesturing him over. 

Harvey drags a chair from another table and squeezes between Mike and Lily. The waitress from before returns, and he orders a brand of scotch that Mike knows is ridiculously expensive, before collapsing back in his chair.  
“Work that bad?” Lily asks, while the others begin to gather their coats and bags.  
“No, Mom, just a lot to do.”  
“You should have an associate for that,” she says.  
“Not Senior Partner yet, and I don’t trust anyone from the pool to do things right. Donna gets things done. I’ll be fine. Just got to get this merger out of the way.” Harvey sips his scotch.  
“I’m going to head home,” Lily says. “Why don’t you boys chat for a while?”  
“I should get going. I have work in a few hours,” Mike says. He sounds disappointed. He realises he is disappointed. He wants to talk with Harvey.  
“Work?”  
“Cleaning job. Before classes and then my library shift,” Mike explains. Harvey’s eyebrows ask questions, but Mike doesn’t quite know how to read them.  
“Wait a few while I finish this and I can take you home, if that helps?” Harvey asks.  
The thing is, Mike knows he should say no. He knows he should head home and rest. But he just doesn’t want to. The indecision weighs on him for mere moments, before he realises that he never does anything for himself. If nothing comes of this, at least he’ll have a story to tell Grammy when he stops by next time.  
“Sure,” he agrees, and settles back in his chair to finish his own drink (just Coke, nothing anywhere near as exciting as Harvey’s scotch).

 

They make small talk for a few minutes, before Harvey turns more in his seat to face Mike.  
“What exactly are you doing tomorrow?” he asks. Mike huffs a laugh.  
“I have a cleaning job from five until seven. Then I cram for a hour on the bus back to campus. I have classes from eight until six, then a shift in the campus library from six until eight. Then a bar shift from ten until two. Do it all over again the next day. Though I only have bar shifts three times per week or I’d likely die!”  
“That’s a lot of jobs,” Harvey says softly. “Aren’t you tired?”  
“Of course. But then, aren’t you. Lawyering is hard too.”   
Harvey just nods and sips his drink. The silence sits for a short while, each man contemplating their own lives.  
“What are you studying?” Harvey finally continues.  
“Double major. Law and English Lit. Not sure exactly what I want to do, yet. Just know I want to make my Grammy proud.”  
“Can I ask?”   
“My parents died, when I was eleven. Drunk driver ploughed into them at sixty. Grammy took me in. She did so much for me, even in the middle years when I got stoned every night and blew so many things off. When I turned things around four years ago and got into college she told me she’d always believed in me. I’m glad she did, because I was so lost I think I’d forgotten who I was.”  
Harvey nods along as Mike speaks. There is something about his eyes that Mike can’t name, but they draw him in and he finds himself staring right back. Penetrating. There – he named it. It seems as though Harvey wants to look down into his very soul.

~*~

“Ray, this is Mike. We’re taking him home,” Harvey introduces.   
“Your home or his home?” Ray asks genuinely. At least Mike now knows for certain that Harvey at least swings his way sometimes, if not all the time.  
“His home, Ray.”  
“Address, sir?” Ray asks.  
“Please, it’s Mike!” Mike replies, before rattling off an address close to campus. Then he climbs into the back of the very nice town car with the man in his very nice suit, and realises just how out of place he looks and feels.  
“You okay?” Harvey asks.  
“Yep. Just thinking how my Converse go so well with the décor in here,” Mike says. He doesn’t mean for it, but a little shame creeps into his voice.  
“Hey,” Harvey says, placing a hand on his knee. There are no more words to follow. Mike’s heart has jumped into his throat and is pounding away wildly there. Mike is suddenly overcome with a giant wave of want. It’s been such a long time since he got laid, and it seems like Harvey would be open to the idea. Just as he’s about to suggest something, they draw up outside his apartment. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be.  
“Can I get your number?” Harvey asks, and he sounds almost bashful, which contrasts entirely with the confidence that seems to exude from him usually. “Maybe, if you can squeeze it in, we could have coffee?”  
“Sounds great,” Mike says. Harvey smiles and slips his phone from his pocket, before handing it to Mike to tap in his number. Mike presses a couple of other buttons and then grins as he hands it back.  
“I’ll text you mine,” Harvey says as he takes the phone back.  
“No need,” Mike says, tapping his head and grinning wildly. “I already have it in here.”  
Harvey laughs and watches closely as Mike climbs out of the car, waves, and then heads into his apartment building.

That night, when Mike climbs into bed with only four hours to sleep before the longest day of his week, he can’t help but grin. Bubbles of excitement hum through him and he feels overwhelmed by it all. Harvey is gorgeous, intelligent and interested (three things Mike likes in his men), though why Harvey is interested in him, Mike still isn’t sure.

Coffee.  
And then maybe sex? Sex would be great!

~*~

“Latte?” Harvey asks. Mike can read the man easily and it’s clear Harvey thinks the drink ridiculous.  
“The calcium is good for me,” Mike smiles. Harvey reaches over the small table (below which their knees are touching in a far too lovely way) and wipes his thumb across Mike’s top lip. He blushes – a milk moustache? Harvey will probably think he did that totally on purpose.  
“So you meet your mom every week. That’s sweet,” Mike says, sipping again from his drink.  
Harvey shifts uncomfortably in his seat and takes a slow swallow of black coffee before answering.  
“I do now, yes, but we hadn’t spoken to each other for years until my brother forced us into a room a couple of years ago.”  
Mike knows the story behind this is much bigger, but he won’t push for now. They barely know each other. Still, he finds it strange that a woman as lovely as Lily seems to cause Harvey such pain. Mike sees it in his eyes, the way they squint a little, his heart twisting.  
“Okay. Maybe one day you’ll tell me the story behind it,” Mike says gently.  
“There is no story. She cheated on my dad, a lot, and I caught her. But he died a couple years back, and Marcus—that’s my brother—said that she was the only family I had left and I had to try. So I do it for him, really.”  
Harvey’s words are nonchalant but his shoulders are set firm.  
“My parents died when I was eleven.” Mike gets the reaction he knows that it will and Harvey splutters on his coffee.  
“Warn a guy, would you?” he asks. There is a lilt to his voice – he doesn’t know if he’s pushing it with the joke. He waits before continuing. “You want to tell me about it|?”  
“No story,” Mike says with a grin. Then, more solemnly than he would like, “Drunk driver hit their car one night. They died instantly.”  
“I’m sorry, no one should have to go through that.”  
“I was lucky, really. My Grammy raised me and she was the best double parent I could have asked for. Sure, I didn’t really show her that soon enough and I was a hell child until three years ago when I put my life back on track.”

Mike continues, weaving the tail of how he let deadbeat Trevor ruin his life, get him kicked out of school, leave him chasing his GED and working three jobs when he took his drug business upstate and the money too. When Grammy got sick, Mike thought he was going to lose everything. Thankfully, he found his direction. Well, sort of, no-one with direction does multiple majors.

Harvey watches Mike tell the story. He loves how animated he grows, with wild arm gestures and ridiculous expressions. His heart rises and falls with the story (he won’t lie, the drug bit neither suprises him nor impresses him, but he kind of expected there was that sort of story in the background) and he laughs in all the right places.

But the thing that impresses him most of all is Mike’s mind. The story isn’t well worn, not one Mike has told over and over, but it flows freely. He wasn’t lying; he forgets nothing. It takes a few moments for Harvey to realise that Mike has stopped talking and is waiting for Harvey to join in.  
“Sorry,” Harvey says, and his cheeks flush a little.  
“Not often I bore someone that badly,” Mike says self-deprecatingly.   
“Not bored at all,” Harvey reassures him, placing his hand over Mike’s.  
“So what’s your story? How’d you end up as power lawyer in training?”  
“I made some mistakes. Not drug running mistakes,” he says, with raised eyebrow. Mike smiles. “But mistakes. I fell apart in college. The stuff with dad and mom got to me and I fucked a few things up. I was working mailroom when Jessica found me. She’s managing partner now, but then she was a senior partner. She said she saw something in me that I couldn’t see myself. Put me through law school. I plan to pay her back tenfold.”  
Mike nods approvingly. The suddenness of a ring tone makes both jump slightly, and then Harvey is fishing his phone out of his pocket.  
“Donna,” he answers through gritted teeth. “This had better be life or death or—”  
He falls silent and his face grows grim. “I’m on my way,” he all but growls.  
“Work?” Mike asks.  
“Unfortunately,” Harvey replies. “I’m so sorry. I’m going to have to go.”  
“Can I walk you?”  
Harvey pauses for a moment and then smiles. Mike watches as something flashes across Harvey’s face.  
“Why don’t you come with me?” Harvey asks. “Come and see what we do. Might help you finally trim down those majors,” he says with a smirk.  
Mike likes the idea of seeing Harvey in his natural habitat. But still.  
“I can’t. I have work.”  
“I’ll pay you, a consultants fee or something.” Harvey cringes the second the words are out of his mouth. He knows how that sounds. “I’m sorry. That was rude.”  
“A little,” Mike smiles, “But I am broke and an hour with you sounds much more appealing than an hour cleaning or whatever,” Mike says. “Tell you what, I come with you and then you buy dinner. Let’s see how things go from there.”  
Harvey smiles and reaches towards Mike who grips his hand. “Done,” he says.

~*~

Harvey hasn’t been truly stunned by someone in a very, very long time. Mike is incredible. In fact, Harvey isn’t sure if he would have been able to solve the problem without him.   
“What?” Mike asks from where he sits on Harvey’s couch. He looks at home, like he belongs here, and Harvey realises how much he likes it.  
“Nothing. Except I liked having you here, helping me.”  
“I liked helping. It was interesting.”  
“Would you stay on? While you finish training, would you like to stay on? Start your associate position earlier, while you finish school. I’d pay you well.  
Mike’s face shutters closed and his eyes darken.  
“I don’t need charity,” he says, “I can manage perfectly fine.”  
“I know. This isn’t charity. Your mind is incredible. I need you, here, with me. Honestly, I have no idea how I managed without you before. And the money you’ll get here is more than you make across everything else. You’d have more time for your own life, for school.” The ‘for me’ hangs unspoken between them. Mike’s face has softened as he’s spoken and Harvey hopes that he’s been able to dig himself out of the hole a little.  
“Harvey, I’m not even sure you can do that. You’re only a junior partner. And I appreciate the offer. But I want to make it on my own.” Mike has stood up now, moved to stand in front of Harvey. “Thank you for believing in me, though.”  
“Please stay. I—” Harvey swallows. He’s terrified. Terrified. “I don’t want to do this without you, without you by my side.”  
Mike stares at him. His eyes are hooded, soft in the lamplight in the office. Harvey isn’t lying, and he looks scared.  
“Harvey,” Mike whispers.  
Harvey leans in. The first press of his lips is soft and warm against Mike’s, and he shivers at the caution in it. Harvey reaches up, bracketing his face with soft hands and pressing in deeper. The kiss steals Mike’s breath away and he leans in, pressing their chests together and feeling that Harvey is breathless too. All too soon, he pulls back, heaving for breath.  
“Harvey,” he says again.  
“Mike. Please. Stay.”  
“Okay,” Mike says, because there is nothing else he can think of. He needs to be here, with Harvey, all the time.  
“Okay?” Harvey asks.  
“Okay,” Mike replies, before pressing their lips together again.

~*~

“Grammy!” Mike grins, wrapping his arms around her gently. “What are you doing here? I thought you had dinner at the home?”  
“Your young man invited me, dear,” she says, patting his cheek.  
“Harvey did?”  
“I did,” says the man in question, sliding up behind Mike and grinning at him. He leans in and presses a gentle kiss to Grammy’s cheek. “Hello again, Edith, it’s lovely to see you.”  
“Thank you for asking me, and for sending your lovely car to collect me. That Ray is a sweet man. Great taste in music!”  
Harvey ushers Grammy into his apartment, where he has already begun dinner, and helps her with her coat. The huge Christmas tree that Mike insisted on fills the corner of the room he placed it in. He notices Edith’s eyes light up with it and he is even more glad he invited her over.  
“Is this the Christmas surprise you’ve been promising me all week?” Mike asks, hugging tightly around Harvey’s waist.  
“Nope,” Harvey teases. “This is us being good family.”  
The doorbell chimes again and now Mike looks utterly confused while Harvey just grins and strides away.  
Some forty minutes later, Harvey and Mike are surrounded by Lily and Marcus, along with his wife and their daughters. Donna is here, along with Rachel and Jessica and Louis (and the latter was a surprise). A few of his friends from college are also here, and the buzz in the room is palpable.  
“You gave me family for Christmas?” he breathes as Harvey slips his arm around Mike’s shoulders and hauls him in for a hug.  
“Something like that,” Harvey answers. Mike doesn’t remember ever seeing the apartment look so full, even after his graduation from law school, though maybe that’s because there was no enormous Christmas tree.  
“Harvey, we’re ready,” says Donna, looking at Mike in that way that she does, that shows she knows everything and he is a mere mortal. Mike turns to look at Harvey, who smiles and steps away from Mike.

“As you all know, when Mike and I started out together it was because he was nude modelling for my mom’s geriatric art class.” There is a smattering of giggles, and an indignant but jovial “Hey!” from Lily. “But things have changed. In the last few years, Mike finished college and came to be an amazing associate at Pearson, Specter, Litt – and I never thought I’d be saying those three names together – before becoming our youngest junior partner. He moved in here, which was fantastic as his apartment was dreadful,” more laughter, this time from Mike’s college buddies, who were likely remembering their own digs fondly. “But now things are changing, and I hope we’re ready for the challenges the future is going to bring.”  
When Harvey holds his hand out and gestures for him to come closer, Mike swallows and moves slowly, cautiously, his feet like lead.  
“Don’t be afraid,” Harvey whispers as he leans in to press a kiss to Mike’s cheek. “Mike Ross, when you came into my life I was an arrogant, selfish, unfeeling bastard.”  
“Was?” calls Jessica, while Louis and Donna stifle giggles. Harvey just rolls his eyes.  
“But you changed me. The way I feel about you grows and changes every day. I respect your brilliance, your bleeding heart, and your unending love. So here, in front of our family, I wanted to let you know that I can’t imagine my life without you in it. I’m not going to get down on one knee, we’re equals all the way, but I do have a ring.” Harvey slips a small box from his pocket and opens it. Inside, a white gold band nestles in navy blue velvet. “Mike. Will you marry me?”  
Mike gasps. Sure, in hindsight he should have seen this coming, but it feels totally out of left field. His whole life with Harvey? With the one man who can infuriate him and turn him on in a heartbeat? The man who gave him everything and asks for nothing in return.  
“Yes,” Mike breathes. Harvey slips the ring onto Mike’s finger before pulling him into a kiss. The cheers and clapping of their audience fade away as Mike succumbs to the kiss. 

This isn’t about want or need or passion.   
This kiss is about devotion. 

Forever.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey @sway! I really hope this is what you were looking for. It's a little hurried at the end, and for that I'm really sorry, but I broke my wrist which made the last 1500 word really tricky! I want to wish you a very happy Christmas and the very best for 2018!


End file.
